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I guess so, I'm just saying it's not an absolute conclusion since it was made in response to something in EP1 instead of generally.

Either way, that one Dine rule guarantees their innocence anyway.

Well, Nanjo's not covered since he isn't actually a servant. I thought it was kind of interesting that he's the only person to be involved in both instances of "illusion to illusion, earth to earth" other than the bomb explosion. If you read it as illusion = game deaths and earth = real deaths, then those two twilights alone have a live person hiding among dead ones.

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"Something has fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps the worst thing that can fall on them. We have found the truth; and the truth makes no sense."

Not like I think that the servants are culprits in this story, but the Van dine rules can't really be assumed to be valid. After all EP8 shows a game (Bern's game) that blatantly ignored two Van Dine rules (which were later used by Will to kill two goats), and yet it was acclaimed as a wonderful mystery.

Again, I think he needed to backpedal out of filler, hence the introduction of Will and Van Dine generally. He'd gotten Dlanor and Erika too tied up in the filler storyline, and he didn't think they'd be trusted if they suddenly swung around to sincerely trying to solve anything.

He did about as well with Will as he could have, given the circumstances. The character was done well enough in ep7, as was Lion. They weren't really done any good by ep8, but that's another matter entirely.

In the first place he never confirmed that the Knox rules applied to Beato's games.

EP8 blatantly shoves on our face how it isn't necessary for a mystery to follow all those rules to be considered a good mystery.

Ryuukishi even goes as far as to making Dlanor and Will to admit they are old styled. And there's a little chat during the party where it was pointed out how many famous mystery classic do not follow all those rules.

Why he brought up all those rules in the first place then? Why he even made Dlanor and Will state them in red then?

The hell I know... but it seems he enjoys making the readers believe in something only to crush that belief later.

In the first place he never confirmed that the Knox rules applied to Beato's games.

EP8 blatantly shoves on our face how it isn't necessary for a mystery to follow all those rules to be considered a good mystery.

Ryuukishi even goes as far as to making Dlanor and Will to admit they are old styled. And there's a little chat during the party where it was pointed out how many famous mystery classic do not follow all those rules.

Why he brought up all those rules in the first place then? Why he even made Dlanor and Will state them in red then?

The hell I know... but it seems he enjoys making the readers believe in something only to crush that belief later.

Problem being that he doesn't realize that the mysteries that break rules and are still masterpieces are the exception, not the rule.

It's like the old writing-is-like-driving analogy. When you are just starting out, you need to follow the rules to the letter. After you become good at it you can start to bend them a bit. Ryu went straight for the bending despite never having attempted to drive before, so he crashed his car.

Also if he thinks EP8 is a good mystery, then 'lol Ryu.'

That wasn't a mystery, that was a stupid loophole using ambiguity regarding the number of culprits(no accomplices...REALLY? REALLY?) and the purple text transformed it into a stupid puzzle.

Going out of my professional wrestling mystery persona for a second, to Ryu's credit, he DOES make a decent point about the rules needing to adapt. The problem is that insinuating that Knox's rules are outdated. Dine, sure, I'll give him that. Van Dine was a bit of a prick(but a lovable one) and his rules weren't exactly meant to be serious.

But Knox? I'd say Knox's rules still apply today. They basically come down to "don't be an ass to your reader."

But yeah yeah, he had to say that to make his little speech about pride/mystery/thinking that was the most sense he ever made while talking about the genre.

Plus if we have to go along with his thinking about Knox and/or Dine to get Will's speech plus headbutt, I'm honestly fine with that.

You gotta remember that Ryukishi declared EP7 to be an end to the mystery, as like EP6 was an end to the romance stories. At first I thought this meant that EP7 would present the solution to the mystery but after EP8 it seems like it just means he'll stop giving us new mysteries or churning the old ones. EP8 seemed to be a simple story about Ange, although I think he still ended up being a bit long winded sometimes.

As for Knox or Dine rules, what was the purpose of introducing them? You gotta realize his audience is the Comike and Otaku market of Japan, of which a great number have never seen these rules at all or can even read them. 8)

So, yes, it may be boring for Western Mystery fans who can read most of these mystery novels just by picking them up. But, it serves as his way of introducing the concepts to readers completely unfamiliar with them.

No self respecting mystery reader is going to Erika things out and go "well this is a mystery so no secret passages!"

The rules are supposed to be a kindness extended to us by the author, but it's not something we should take for guaranteed.

How should I put this...I wish Ryu were more tasteful and respectful to the genre.

Er, wasn't this kind of the whole point of EP5? The tea party came right out and said that the rules weren't supposed to be a weapon for the reader to wield against the author, and they didn't necessarily apply to Beato's game except to the extent that she wanted to make it solvable. Ryukishi explicitly agreed with you.

__________________

"Something has fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps the worst thing that can fall on them. We have found the truth; and the truth makes no sense."

Er, wasn't this kind of the whole point of EP5? The tea party came right out and said that the rules weren't supposed to be a weapon for the reader to wield against the author, and they didn't necessarily apply to Beato's game except to the extent that she wanted to make it solvable. Ryukishi explicitly agreed with you.

Yes, I liked that part. What I didn't like was how he did it, as it ended up being rather hypocritical.

EDIT: My new year resolution is to not make a rant about the mystery genre every five minutes, so I'll save you all a lecture about my pet peeves.

Yes, I liked that part. What I didn't like was how he did it. First of all, no one ever tried to use those rules to solve a novel before(...or did the Umineko fandom do that?) he came up with it out of nowhere, used it, then explained why his never-used-before-approach-to-solve-novels was never used before.

Hm, I'll try to expand on what I meant. Although Erika is a caricature of a heartless detective in general, I don't think Ryukishi actually meant for her abuse of Knox itself to reflect on something real people were doing, at least beyond the level of generally ignoring the author's intentions. Instead, the abuse is a vehicle for the revelation that Beato had been following some kind of ruleset in the first place, even if it wasn't precisely equivalent to Knox. Does that make sense?

In the main part of EP7, Will only uses the Dine rules to establish a bare minimum basis of fair play between himself and Bernkastel, and doesn't rely on them for general reasoning. As for the prologue mystery, that was a situation where Will had already figured out the answer. He wasn't acting as a reader imposing a rule on the story, but as a proxy for the author in defense of the story, revealing a rule that had actually been followed. My understanding of the EP8 arguments is that they were qualitatively similar to that, although I haven't personally read that far yet.

__________________

"Something has fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps the worst thing that can fall on them. We have found the truth; and the truth makes no sense."

Hm, I'll try to expand on what I meant. Although Erika is a caricature of a heartless detective in general, I don't think Ryukishi actually meant for her abuse of Knox itself to reflect on something real people were doing, at least beyond the level of generally ignoring the author's intentions. Instead, the abuse is a vehicle for the revelation that Beato had been following some kind of ruleset in the first place, even if it wasn't precisely equivalent to Knox. Does that make sense?

Hmm, yes it makes sense. It's just that the way the Knox abuse was done felt a bit gross to me. But I get what you mean. The problem is that he then kept using the rules in the later episodes and he didn't execute the "follows a ruleset" theme as well as I think he should have done.

It's a pet peeve, but I took some offense to a no-name author basically taking a crap on Knox's decalogue. To me it felt like "Who does he think he is to lecture anyone about Knox? He hasn't showed me he has any talent yet."

While he did in the end of the episode conclude that the rules are needed yet shouldn't be abused, before that he argued they were just like magic/other misunderstandings of the rules, that felt really, really stupid to me. He did eventually hit home in the end of the episode, but the execution was way off.

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In the main part of EP7, Will only uses the Dine rules to establish a bare minimum basis of fair play between himself and Bernkastel, and doesn't rely on them for general reasoning. As for the prologue mystery, that was a situation where Will had already figured out the answer. He wasn't acting as a reader imposing a rule on the story, but as a proxy for the author in defense of the story, revealing a rule that had actually been followed. My understanding of the EP8 arguments is that they were qualitatively similar to that, although I haven't personally read that far yet.

In episode 7, it's also important to note that Bern's mystery breaks the rules Will imposes.

"There must be a body."
"You can't prove there isn't one."
"Maybe it's part of the mystery."
[After mystery is done, there was no body]
"Yeah I got nothing."

I liked Will's approach to the rules in episode 7 much better than the Knox rape in 5.

As for episode 8, I'll spoiler tag it.

Spoiler:

Basically, goats representing Umineko readers attack the golden land and start suggesting ridiculous theories. Will and Dlanor deny them using Knox/Dine(curiously, their rules aren't in red this time).

After the "rules are not a weapon" theme from episode 5, have them do just that is a bit weird to me. It was partially justified as Will makes a speech about the genre a second later, but still, it felt a bit weak to me.

So to sum up, I think the rules could have been handled in a better way. Episode 8 was decent in expressing his views about the genre. They were...okay. I disagree with two major points in his assertions, but I can live with it. It's Ryu's execution every time he talks about the genre that kills me inside.

First of all, no one ever tried to use those rules to solve a novel before(...or did the Umineko fandom do that?)

Japanese fans were trying it. I remember reading a thread where people were trying to use classical mystery rules to deny certain possibilities. I'm not gonna claim that Ryukishi was aware of this, and I think LyricalAura is closer to the proverbial nail, but unintentionally or otherwise it did shut up some dickwavers.

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While he did in the end of the episode conclude that the rules are needed yet shouldn't be abused, before that he argued they were just like magic/other misunderstandings of the rules, that felt really, really stupid to me. He did eventually hit home in the end of the episode, but the execution was way off.

In fairness, It was BATTLER proposing that Erika's ABUSE of the rules is like magic, which is sorta valid, since if you're going to use the rules as an objective, prescriptive tool that can eliminate possibilities before you start reading, it's little better than using ESP or intuition.

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In episode 7, it's also important to note that Bern's mystery breaks the rules Will imposes.

Bern's whole shtick is that she takes a shit on EVERYTHING. I wouldn't take this to be reflective on Ryu at all.

Quote:

Basically, goats representing Umineko readers attack the golden land and start suggesting ridiculous theories. Will and Dlanor deny them using Knox/Dine(curiously, their rules aren't in red this time).

After the "rules are not a weapon" theme from episode 5, have them do just that is a bit weird to me. It was partially justified as Will makes a speech about the genre a second later, but still, it felt a bit weak to me.

It was an awesome fight scene. Everything else goes out the window because of it, for better or worse.

Quote:

It's Ryu's execution every time he talks about the genre that kills me inside.

In episode 7, it's also important to note that Bern's mystery breaks the rules Will imposes.

"There must be a body."
"You can't prove there isn't one."
"Maybe it's part of the mystery."
[After mystery is done, there was no body]
"Yeah I got nothing."

Actually, since the "murder" in question involves preventing a fictional character from being created, I think you can make an argument that the book lying in the coffin at the beginning actually was the corpse.

__________________

"Something has fallen on us that falls very seldom on men; perhaps the worst thing that can fall on them. We have found the truth; and the truth makes no sense."